"cootie catcher" written by Zobar on estrip.org

09/05/07 04:07 - 83ºF - ID#40950

cootie catcher

Emergency Bulletin! Jon Spencer at Mohawk Place next Tuesday

Now on with our regularly-scheduled post:

OK, I was discussing cootie catchers/fortune tellers with (e:dragonlady7). She said she didn't know how to make one, so I Googled it. It is not surprising to me that I found instructions for making a cootie catcher on the Internet. You may follow the link

but the URL itself is more interesting than the page.

girlpower.gov/girlarea/gamespuz/cootiecatcher.htm

How wrong is this URL? Let me count the ways:

1: There are instructions on a US Government [.gov] website for making a cootie catcher.

2: There is a website called girlpower.gov at all.

3: I just visited a website's girl area.

Now I feel dirty.

- Z

Permalink: cootie_catcher.html
Words: 147
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

08/27/07 02:45 - 77ºF - ID#40757

flip flop

1: Facebook is quite addictive

2: Usually I stay away from politics, but here's something to chew on.

Both major political parties have diverse, complex, and often contradictory platforms that go far beyond the simplistic conservative/liberal split. What is interesting is how they take sides when an issue is not addressed by the traditional party platform.

To whit: the electoral college. Republicans typically support it, and Democrats typically oppose it. Both sides can come up with long lists of lofty ideals that support/oppose it, but what it comes down to for both sides is that the electoral college elected a Republican twice in a row.

In the electoral college, most states use the Winner Takes All method but two states [Maine (D x4) and Nebraska (R x5)] use an alternate approach that arguably gives better direct representation. The Democratic Party proposed switching Colorado (R x9) to the new system in 2004, and failed.

Now it seems Republicans are all about more direct representation in the electoral college, but only in California (D x55). And who is defending the status quo? Yeah, the Democrats.

Conclusion: Only losers want election reform, but only the winners have the power to do it.

- Z

joshua writes at 12:24:28 08/29/07 - Comment #23359: Actually the irony is that if GWB hadn't won Ohio, he would have lost the electoral college but won the popular vote by 3.5 million. I can't recall how large of a difference was represented in the popular vote in 2000 but I don't remember it being larger than 3.5 million on Gore's side.

This is the major problem - its obvious, and we've spoken about this plenty of times, that when there is a big discrepency between the popular vote and the electoral college the entire system's credibility is called into question, and rightly so.

I think elimination of the electoral college, or modifications of the rules, would make things very interesting. After all, in 2004 40% of NYS voted for President Bush. Being one of the states with the largest number of electoral votes, distributing these votes in proportion to the popular vote would make things very, very interesting indeed.

I'd be interested in reading a study, if there was one out there, that would determine the outcome of the presidential elections in the past had the electoral college votes been in proportion to the percentage of the popular votes, state by state.

metalpeter writes at 08:20:40 08/27/07 - Comment #23179: The thing about this country is we are not a democrocy we are a representive democrcy. Basiclly the people have no control we pick people to have control for us and then they do what ever they want. If they have morals then they try to get done what the people who elected them elected them for, but often they follow who paid for them to run or even special interest groups. The electoral college is an example of indirect Democraticy but I can understand why people want it. It helps fight fraud. Say I'm running and in Buffalo, New York, Albany and Rochester I get the votes of everyone who died in that year then it doesn't matter that I got 100,000 (or any number) more then my enemy because I only get so many points. But I'm sure there are better ways to stop illegal votes.

But here is one of the problems with it. Lets say (e:josh) was running for president and in NY he is leading and people on TV see that so they don't vote cause it doesn't matter since there guy say (e:ajay) can't win so josh gets all the points an ajay gets nothing. But if those people would have voted then the proportion the ajay would have been behind josh would be much lower and he would be closer. Just the opposite is true also if someone gets 99% of the votes in a state it doesn't matter how many more people voted for them cause the only get the points. That is why you can win the popular vote and not become president it doesn't make any sense.

There is another reason why it should be gotten rid of and that is so you can have more then 2 people running for president. Currently all 3rd party people do is take voters away form some one else and cause them to lose states that the 3rd party can't win. I will use my self as an example Yes I liked Ross Perot and voted for him but all that did was take votes away from someone else and I'm sure a lot of people did that (i hope I'm remembering right that he was 3rd party). But if it is most votes wins then a 3rd party guy or gal could win because they could get the most votes. I'm not saying it would happen but it sure seems like a much more fair way of doing things.

jason writes at 04:24:48 08/27/07 - Comment #23165: Yes, yes, it's about the time to let the gamesmanship begin! The most important thing, and the only real important goal is to attain and keep power.

The thing I find most insulting is that the parties pretty much proudly out themselves as hypocrites, using each others' arguments depending on their relative strength. You see it all the time nowadays, and we will continue to see it. Turnabout is fair play, it seems, and the fanbois pile right on top of it.

I agree that doing this proportional electoral college vote thing state-by-state is just not a good idea, but I'm also not a lawyer and can't say what the recourse is. Maybe it's time to relegate "flyover" country to the worthless status everyone on the coasts wants for it. That certainly would ensure that one party ruled from now until the end of time. Depending on who we root for, that is either a no brainer or an outrage, damn the hypocrisy.

james writes at 03:25:31 08/27/07 - Comment #23160: No, this has nothing to do with direct representation or popular elections or real election reform. This has to do with which party wants to be in power in 2008. California will not go for any of the GOP candidates in 2008. But in this new system 20 of CA's 55 electoral votes will go to the Republicans. That is one hell of a deficit for the Dems to make up and probably would not win the election. This is just a power grab, knocking out the biggest bloc of voters for Dems.

The electoral collage has to go, but doing it state by state is a stupid way to do it. If they do it and Mitt Romney is President there sure as hell wont be any movement to split Texas or other large GOP strongholds.

And Governor Schwartzeneger, a Republican, opposes this reform as well. So it isn't GOP vs. Dems on this issue as a rule.

Permalink: flip_flop.html
Words: 216
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: misc

08/20/07 11:02 - 60ºF - ID#40645

headhunt'd!

Item! It feels nice to be wanted. More details later, or not.

Item! My buddy and his wife ended up in Cancun this weekend. I can only hope they got a hurricane-season discount. They ended up 'finding' plane tickets out at $600 a pop, which was still better than sticking around at the hotel that made no evacuation plans and had been wiped out by another hurricane a couple years ago.

Item! (e:dragonlady7) was out of town this weekend so I got some quality fucking-off done. I did some housework but more importantly I totally found the best article on Wikipedia: (WIKIPEDIA - Voynich manuscript). This is the coolest fucking thing, and it creeps the shit out of me.

Item! What do you do with a bored Norwegian in Buffalo? Take him to the Pirate Festival for "Adult Night!"

I can't really explain why.

- Z

Permalink: headhunt_d_.html
Words: 150
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: weird

08/14/07 11:50 - 68ºF - ID#40534

and when i awoke i was alone

The other night I had a weird dream. (e:dragonlady7) 's Norwegian cousin Aleksander was visiting us, and someone suggested that we should take him to a community ed. class about Norwegian Culture & Language. We showed up and there were maybe 100 people in the classroom, mostly just shooting the bull and eating the fruit & cheese trays. The teacher didn't really know anything about Norway and didn't bother to teach the class. I guess it was mostly just a social night called Community Ed. So Aleksander goes up to the front of the class and starts talking about what Norway is like, and some people are listening and some people are not, and nobody's being rude or anything, but really he could really have been talking about anything at all.

He kinda thinks this is totally lame, and there's all these people eating cheese and crackers, and so he says, you know, Norway's very similar to the United States in a lot of ways, except that when we eat cheese and crackers, we don't eat cheddar, we eat havarti.

And you know how in elementary foreign-language classes, when they teach you new vocabulary, the teacher says the word and the students repeat it? Everybody stopped what they were doing, said "HAVARTI!" in unison, and went back to chatting.

I split a gut and had to leave the room I was laughing so hard. Aleksander had half an idea of what was going on so he went on to explain that in Norway the cheese and fruit trays would be called a smörgåsbord [laying on the accent real thick-like]. And the entire class stopped, replied "SMORGASBORD!" and went back to doing whatever it was they were doing.

Laughing, Aleksander came out to join me in the hallway and asked me what the Hell was going on. I was laughing so hard I woke up.

Turns out neither havarti nor smorgasbords are particularly Norwegian.

- Z

Permalink: and_when_i_awoke_i_was_alone.html
Words: 327
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: lol

08/13/07 03:13 - 79ºF - ID#40515

lulz! [edited]

My kitty Chita Rivera is such a spaz, a product of her surroundings I suppose.

Also, see my previous post if you want to hear all the stupid details about my living room. Here's a pretty decent color sample

- yellow living room to the right, blue stairwell to the left, [future] orange hallway in the center. The old color

is so bleh, especially when compared with the new color at sunrise

- Z

_______________
Edited to add 'invisable microphone:' damn this is addictive.

Permalink: lulz_edited_.html
Words: 103
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: home

08/13/07 11:56 - 72ºF - ID#40511

color

So we've been renting a house from my mom for a while. It's a nice house but the walls are hideous. Somebody once decided to paint the living room periwinkle. [I can't explain it - the floors are a light-colored hardwood and the room tried its hardest to clash with itself.] My room is a smudgy light-toothpaste green. The kitchen has dead-wildflower wallpaper in muted earthtones with high-gloss white-and-yellow Formica all over the walls. And the master bedroom - jesus - is reflective silver wallpaper with baby blue flowers. Also, much of the ceiling paint [which is your standard white] is peeling. I strongly suspect that there are more serious problems with the walls, which are still the original [early postwar] plaster.

I told mom we were repainting the place whether she liked it or not. Then I showed her the swatches we'd picked for the living room. She kinda flipped out [she owns the house after all]. "You are an adult and you can make your own decisions. But when you leave the house you're painting it all white again." Hmf.

Now our living room is ZOMGWTFYELLOW!!! with all the molding in HOLY SHIT!!! PURPLE. It sounds like a trainwreck but it looks 300,000 times better. Turns out it was always a yellow room but nobody bothered to paint it that way. Pix soon.

I think maybe we won't tell mom what colors we've picked for the rest of the house.

- Z

Permalink: color.html
Words: 243
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: news

08/08/07 08:24 - 81ºF - ID#40447

extra extra!

Item! Keep your meat-hole clean. While the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets is fucking around with a Freedom of Information request, Weggies gave it to me straight. Their meat grinder used to connect to another machine, and now it doesn't. The inspector felt that the hole coming out of the meat grinder should be capped [it wasn't] and gave Wegs a "non-finable critical deficiency."

Item! I am the Troy Tulowitzki of base humor. Anyone else want to try fitting Pablo Neruda, Joel Giambra, and the US Geological Survey into a joke about public sex, while commenting on the chronic underfunding of the Erie County public library system? Can you do it in under three sentences? Yeah, thought so.

Item! Don't be a cock to the press. This is pretty self-explanatory: we have a press and you don't. Furthermore, we're underpaid and cranky and if we're writing about you we already think you're a fucking idiot. Oh yeah, and we record pretty much every telephone conversation we have. What is wrong with you?

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

- Z

metalpeter writes at 06:34:37 08/09/07 - Comment #21957: First of all I have been to all the MIA Fests and if you don't believe me you can check out my webshots page. Secondly I'm a little bit confussed by that caller. I didn't read anything negative in that article. It does sound like both sides are happy. There are two things the article doesn't mention that are key factors. The ads that where sold how long are they for is it just for MIA or for the entire fair, and after MIA will those ads change? If it is for the entire Fair then they are just using an atraction to make there space worth more. I'm sure some of the other acts like Daughtry do the same thing. The second thing is this year I have seen a lot more ads who is paying for those in the Buffalo news and I think a couple TV ads also?

On a side note I know one day it won't be as good as two days but you have the city to blame for that. One of the cool things that I hope they still have is that you can watch people create art and at the start and sometimes up untill the end you can't tell what it is going to be.

joshua writes at 12:35:35 08/09/07 - Comment #21940: Like I told Z privately, I have no objections to the Fair selling off corporate space near the music and the enterance. Its hardly a problem, unless you simply hate corporate America and what it represents and on principle have an objection.

chico writes at 09:55:53 08/09/07 - Comment #21930: That is some phone call, I tells ya. Yikes. I loved the calm replies and the ultimate tell-off.

This is the relevant artcle in AV, right?
:::link:::
Here's a clip from the article:

"By moving to Hamburg, MiA saves money on security, a big cost that will be provided by the fair. According to Lou Ann Delaney, marketing director for America's Fair, the event is a "partnership" benefiting both parties. "We give them electricity, property that we would normally rent to a vendor, passes for all the participants, shuttle service for the performers from ECC to the stage. We help them get some donations for the VIP party."

What's a little harsh to realize is that once MiA agreed to hold their festival at the fair, the fair then turned around and sold space on either side of the midway entrance gate to corporate sponsors Best Buy and AT&T. How much were these companies willing to throw down to reserve placement right at the entrance to this new and exciting fair attraction? Seven thousand dollars apiece, according to Delaney. Each corporation will be paying America's Fair $500 per hour to be associated with Music is Art. That's synergy, and it makes it all worthwhile for the fair."

mrmike writes at 09:28:15 08/09/07 - Comment #21928: The topper was that she was on Channel 4's news last night broadcasting about the Fair's fortunes. I did walk by Music is Art's area. That is going to be pretty fuckin sad compared to when they had it in the city.

paul writes at 10:50:57 08/08/07 - Comment #21915: I just can't freakin' believe it - she is really a biznatch.

paul writes at 10:46:59 08/08/07 - Comment #21914: Thank is the fantastic stuff that I always dreamed of when creating the site. God, it is so good - I am listening to it twice.

mrmike writes at 09:53:52 08/08/07 - Comment #21909: Wow, bushleague for a marketing "pro." Betting it's Music is Art. Good for Buck for keeping cool while dealing with somebody who shouldn't be in their position. Is this a reason why I can't make any headway marketing wise.

joshua writes at 09:16:29 08/08/07 - Comment #21906: This recording was amusing, particularly because of a) her trembling voice, b) her inability to articulate her own spin and c) her namedropping Jamie Moses.... lol. Pretty poor for a "Marketing Director."

Who is this lady, what partnership is she talking about and why does she feel compelled to threaten Artvoice? Really... a lady like this should be unemployable if she's actually working in the private sector. Could you imagine if you were an underling of hers? Like scrubbing corns off of feet much? =(

dragonlady7 writes at 08:34:53 08/08/07 - Comment #21905: Wow the temptation, were I him, to write a complete hatchet job of the whole thing would be tremendous.

Except, of course, it would be ridiculous to let that woman dictate to me what I write in any fashion at all, and so I would probably, in the end, resist it, and would have to proceed with the story as originally planned.

I would probably be unable to resist throwing in a line about how unusually sensitive their marketing department was about the whole selling-tent-at-the-entrance thing.

Permalink: extra_extra_.html
Words: 193
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: food

08/04/07 07:10 - 81ºF - ID#40381

bad weggies!

I do not seriously consider the quality of a mobile phone's camera when I'm shopping for one. It is a phone and I use it to talk. That having been said, if a phone should come with a camera, it would be nice if it were halfway decent. The camera on my Sony Ericsson T616 sucks balls. But that is not why you came here today.

This is a document hanging up at the entrance to the Amherst St Wegmans. You cannot read it here because my phone's camera sucks, but at the top it says 'NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH - INSPECTION - 6/23/07.' It is hanging up with all kinds of other boring paperwork, like their beer & wine license, and the building's rated maximum capacity, and like the minimum wage laws and employee of the month. Boring.

Except-

what is that checkmarked box labeled? You cannot read it here because, once again, my phone's camera sucks, but it says 'CRITICAL DEFICIENCIES.' [The other options were 'this establishment is in compliance...' and 'critical deficiencies which have been addressed...']

Ya.

- Z

Permalink: bad_weggies_.html
Words: 189
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: news

08/01/07 11:06 - 79ºF - ID#40338

schadenfreude

I will refrain from adding my own commentary.

Since at least mid-June, BRO has been posting negative stories about Buffalo that are saved to a hidden cache page and not posted to or made mention of on the main pages that we are all familiar with.

I didn't read about the YWCA heroin-at-daycare case on BRO, did you? Yet here it is, and it was Dugg by nearly two thousand users. Which put it on the frontpage of one of the web's most visited pages, seen in the neighborhood of 200,000 times.

Here's a story BRO didn't post (but did) about the man who was beaten with his own prosthetic leg. I especially love the accompanying graphic. It's been posted to Digg.

To top it off, BRO has even posted stories from way outside city limits - Lockport, County of Niagara, is representing on BRO's cache site, with sodomizing pitbulls galore. Digg? Check. Over 1,000 Diggs, to be precise.

[...]

So, while promoting the wonders of Buffalo to the local audience, Buffalo Rising is perfectly content to promote some very ugly, very negative stories about Buffalo (and Lockport, County of Niagara), to a separate worldwide audience in order to artificially inflate web statistics.

- Z

Permalink: schadenfreude.html
Words: 281
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

07/24/07 04:54 - 76ºF - ID#40238

vox pop

1. You ever wonder what it's like to be a sysadmin for an alt weekly? You want to find out? Send me your resume.

2. You ever see those ads on political websites showing the president making a monkey face or Hillary Clinton's eyes popping out of her head, and the ad says: 'Do you approve of the job this person is doing? Vote in our completely neutral and totally legitimate ballot.'

I've never clicked on one, so I don't know if they even register your 'vote.' I'm sort of half-curious about how the voting breaks down for those, but I'd be more interested to know how many people vote on those at all. [And also, academically, how many of the people who vote on those things actually vote with real ballots in November.]

I am not a big fan of Newsvine

[I find it far too self-referential to be of any use] but they are running an interesting presidential primary poll. Get websites of varying levels of bias and neutrality, give them a relatively neutral ballot, and see what comes up

[sample ballot:

].

What is interesting is not so much how the political sites are biased ['The Mitt Report' is 96% for Romney, imagine that] but how nonpolitical sites can be strongly biased in weird ways ['ClanTemplates,' which appeares to be some kind of gaming site? has Al Gore with a convincing lead, and I don't even think he's running].

- Z

Permalink: vox_pop.html
Words: 254
Location: Buffalo, NY

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